Zoids: Domestic Force miniseries
by Hako Dorriker
Summary: Alternate timeline to NCO and to some of GF. 40 years after the discovery of Zoid Eve, a new nation has risen in the region surrounding the legendary Valley of the Rarehertz after the strangest and quite possibly the bloodiest war the planet has ever seen


**Back story:**

About 40 years after the end of Guardian Force and the discovery of Zoid Eve, hostilities arise in the region surrounding the legendary Valley of the Rarehertz. Soon this would escalate into a localized, but tremendously bloody battle that would even draw in forces from other worlds as well. This is an alternate timeline to New Century Zero, and somewhat alternate to Guardian Force. It brings in some of the CC/GF characters and refers to some events in CC, but primarily focuses on new characters, some of them fairly unusual. A lot of things previously painted as mysterious or unknown are better explained by the introduction of an off-world organoid as part of the central cast of characters, as well as a tremendously immature Zoid-pilot-wanna-be who inadvertantly ends up causing a lot of trouble. This miniseries is more along the lines of a political/military/personal issues balancing action/drama. Each episode has it's own formula, and it's own theme. The first two are quite similar, but that's just to introduce some of the characters. More will be intorduced as the miniseries progresses. And of course, there is a whole set of new Zoids and weapons, most of them similar to the weapons in CC/GF (since most of this takes place just 60 years after GF)

The war began when independent mercenary forces, while attempting to retrieve the legendary Zoid Eve (so they could hold the entire planet hostage), encountered unexpected resistence. The mercenaries were allegedly defeated, but others attempted the same thing again. Soon the capture of Zoid Eve became the goal of the United Factions Army, the united forces of power-hungry, independent mercenaries and bandits. A resistance consisting of a newly-expanded Guardian Force made up of forces from both Guylos and Helic Republic was brought in to assist the small, but mysterious army of seemingly autonomous zoids that had begun fighting against the Factions in defence of the Eve.

But hundreds of light-years away, a transmission from Zi is received on a distant planet. This planet's inhabitants allegedly had some interaction with the ancient Zoidian race and also have something to do with the origins of the organoids. In response to the transmission (supposedly a distress signal sent by the Zoid Eve). They send back to Zi, an army of slightly familiar, but autonomous zoids, a grey and orange organoid with some unusual capabilities and a brown and silver zoid unlike anything on planet Zi.

This organoid, called Blinn and it's zoid turn the tables of warfare and lead the new allied armies to a tremendous victory. It's been 20 years since the war ended, and a new nation comprised of human colonists, ancient Zoidians, their organoids, and a settlement of the alien race that sent Blinn has risen in the small piece of territory ceded by the Helic Rebulic surrounding the Valley of the Rarehertz.

It would seem as though the ancient Zoidian civilization of legends has risen once again.

**Episode 1:**

**Routine Defense**

Tom enjoyed the somewhat descent weather. Unlike so much of the rest of the world, the climate down here had been somewhat re-moisturized. There were plants, and animals. Not many of them, but it was a start. There were also roads. That was a plus. Considering many of the places around here were only connected by rail at best. The highways only reached to the coast and still had yet to extend into the heart of the continent. Tom enjoyed driving fast. The speed limit was 50, he was going 90. The traffic cops were too busy with real trouble to even bother with speeders. The car lifted a bit off the ground when he crested the rolling hills. As he crested yet another one, catching a small amount of air with it, he noticed, of all things. A white MG with green stripes. Not a police cruiser. A police zoid. An MG was like a miniature Gojulas. One eighth the size, and far less fire-power. They are as common as Guysacks used to be. Perhaps even more-so. Tom slammed the brakes and dropped his speed to 45. He figured he had been caught anyway, and he didn't want to anger the thing by making it seem like he was trying to get away. The MG stepped into the road and Tom came to a stop. But before he could get out his license and registration, it said, "Get out of here now, this area is under military evacuation orders.". Tom was surprised by this. He thought he was getting a ticket. He asked, "What's happening?", he asked.

"The Military is engaging the enemy, you can't be here now.", it said

"Military... Engaging Enemy? Cool!", Tom thought.

Although he was a terrible pilot, Tom did enjoy watching a good battle. Police MG or not, he cruised right ahead despite the orders.

The battle was taking place in a clearing, naturally. There were four red Guysacks, two orange command wolves, and a white Zaber Fang.

"That must be the enemy." he thought, "That's quite a force. They could do some major damage to the city with that."

Facing the enemy zoids was a single brown and silver zoid. Tom couldn't get a very good look at it because there was a lot of foliage between him and the battlefield.

"What's that?" he thought, "Is that a kind of Geno-Saurer? Or is it a Gojulas?"

Either was likely. The government had purchased many Geno-units from the empire for defense of the city and Gojulas were common around here. The government had made sure that it's army was well-equipped and very up-to-date. Things had changed a lot since before the last war.

The enemies reloaded their weapons, the guy in the Liger yelled over the loud-speaker:

"Eat particle cannon!"

"Wow! A Liger with a particle cannon?" he thought, "I think we might be doomed!"

The Liger blasted away at the brown-and-silver something, but it was too fast. The thing had already escaped the beam.

Naturally, it had used a booster to get in the air above it, for an aerial attack.

It landed on the back of the Liger, and much to the pilot's dismay, tore off the particle cannon and froze it's combat system.

"What!" said one of the Command Wolf pilots over the loud speaker, "Take this, organoid!"

"Whoa!" thought Tom, "Just when this battle couldn't get any better, there's an organoid on our side!"

But the battle had already ended. What Tom could now identify as a Daleron, a brown-and-silver dragon-like zoid which would be easily mistaken for a Geno-Saurer from far enough away was clearly far too powerful for the team of bandits.

It was the Daleron that won the war for this land against the United Factions. It was practically the flagship of the army.

One of the command wolves began firing, he missed every shot.

One of the shots hit a branch above Tom's car. It crackled, but remained suspended above by the density of the foliage.

The Daleron just looked at the Command Wolves and their battle systems froze.

The Guysacks retreated.

"What the!" A command wolf pilot said, "The battle system froze up! I didn't even get hit."

Then a voice came through the loud speaker on the Daleron,

"Your zoid doesn't want to fight me for your cause any more."

"Damn organoid! You hacked my zoid didn't you! That's cowardly! Why don't you fight like a man!"

The pilot of the Daleron paused a moment, "I did have a chat with your zoid, true. But I didn't hack it. You seem to be forgetting. The Command Wolf is a semi-autonomous zoid. It freezes the battle system when it, for what ever reason, decides for itself to stop fighting. That decision should be respected."

"You! Goddamn it, Command Wolf! We're fighting that thing! I said, Fight!", they yelled at the control panels of their zoids. They did not respond.

"I'll get you Blinn! Damn it! I'll kill you one of these days!", one of them yelled as their Command Wolves ran off. As they left the battle field, they left an electro-magnetic flash bomb that somehow, the pilot of the Daleron did not see.

"Have fun with this present. Take this Blinn.", said one of the pilots as he activated the timer on the bomb.

"You won't even get close to me with that attitude.", said Blinn, under his breath.

Just then he noticed Tom in the trees nearby, watching the battle.

"I believe some MG's told you to stay away from here.", said Blinn over the loudspeaker.

Before Tom could reply, the EM bomb went off and filled the clearing with blinding white light.

Tom was seeing spots for a short while after that. He looked around, and found the Daleron still standing there but inactive.

"Oh holy damn, what was that? Ouch.", he said as he fell off the roof of the car, where he had been watching the battle.

"Hey you!" he yelled toward the Daleron, "Are you alright in there?"

There was no response. So Tom climbed up to the cockpit of the machine and banged on the narrow little windows (since he wasn't sure where the canopy exactly was on the thing).

"Hello in there!" he yelled, "Are you okay? I think those assholes left an EM bomb. That flash couldn't have killed you, could it?"

Tom began thinking that it may have been his fault. If he hadn't of been there to distract him from the battlefield, then maybe he could have gotten out of the way of the EM bomb.

"Okay, if you are like, grinding your teeth in anger toward me for accidently being a distraction, then I understand why you might be angry, and I'll get off of your zoid before you have it bite me, or something.", he said. Then he climbed back down and backed off, keeping his eye on the zoid.

Nothing happened.

Finally, some ventilation opened on the back and an amorphous ball of light came out of it. The ball settled on the ground and re-materialized an orange-and-grey organoid.

"There's the organoid. Where's the pilot?", he said as he went over to the unconscious machine.

The zoid totally powered down, and Tom looked up into the vent from which the organoid emerged, to find that he couldn't see anybody in the cockpit.

"Where's the pilot." he wondered, "Maybe he's inside this organoid! Like that one guy used to do! Cool."

The organoid's eyes finally lit back up as he came back online. Tom backed off, half expecting the pilot to pop out of the organoid's chest.

The eyes glowed yellow. He seemed to take a while to come back again.

He stood there for about a minute, just staring at the ground. Finally his joints unlocked and he looked over at Tom and said,

"I appreciate the concern, I'm not mad at you and I can't hold people inside me."

"Where's the pilot?" he asked before suddenly realizing that this organoid was actually talking to him. He exclaimed, "Whoa hold on a minute here! You're not supposed to talk! And did you read my mind? Can you read minds! Oh wow, how cool!"

The organoid stared at him for a little while and then said, "I don't read minds. I'm just perceptive. And I am the pilot. Please don't ask me any more questions, kid."

He then looked up at the Daleron and grunted with concern.

Tom seemed slightly crushed that the first zoid he had ever had a conversation with wasn't really that much of a conversationalist. He was also absolutely certain that the thing could read minds. This was reinforced by what happened next.

Tom took another step closer with his arms shaking in excitement, but before the words could leave his mouth, the organoid said, "You should go back home now. I'm not going to follow you. You have a car, so go drive home. Which based on how excited you are to see me must be very, very far away from here."

Just on cue, that branch that had been broken from the tree from before finally snapped and broke through the foliage supporting it, smashing the roof of Tom's car in.

"My car!", yelled Tom.

"I have insurance, They have this 'act of God' thing that covers things like this." the line between his thinking-out-loud and talking was blurred, "Now how am I supposed to get home."

The sweat-drop on the side of the organoid's head could have caused flash floods for the whole region

Next thing they know, there both in the Daleron on the road back to town.

The endless barrage of questions from Tom was temporarily placated by awe as he looked around the interior of the cockpit.

"Hey, do you have a name?", he asked.

"Alpha Commander Blinn, 2nd Integrated Infantry Division of the Dincotian Protectorate Army.", stated the organoid sitting in the front seat of the zoid.

Tom was a bit taken back by this. He had no idea that he was dealing with a high-ranking military officer. He would have maybe expected that from a human pilot, but most certainly not an organoid.

He also thought it was odd that this organoid piloted the zoid from the cockpit as a human pilot would have to. He didn't seem to be moving the controls around a whole lot. Tom also noticed a removable panel on the back of the cockpit. There was a manufacturing date of "64950" printed on a little placard along with some of that Dincotian text. Presumably the company that made this thing, and the factory it was manufactured at.

"I bet this is where the core is." thought Tom, "I wonder why Blinn isn't fused with it"

Tom opened the panel and, much to his disappointment, there was no core back there. Just a rail system for an escape launcher.

"The core is up here, this is not by any means a conventional zoid. It's not even from this planet. It was manufactured off-world during the war.", explained Blinn.

"Then where is the core?", asked Tom.

Blinn continued:

"I'm sitting on it. It's right here. This zoid was designed for a different kind of usage than you might be used to. It was designed to be piloted by Dincotians and organoids. Not necessarily humans. So the core is smaller, because it is less complex. I suppose the idea is that if the pilot is directly connected to the zoid, controlling it as one would control a part of one's body, as would be the case with either us organoids or the Dincotians, a separate system to control the operations of the zoid is completely unnecessary."

Tom closed the panel and got back in his seat.

Blinn dropped him off at his community pod in Dorigan. Just about ten miles from where the battle had taken place.Dorigan was a city entirely built in the last ten years, because everything had been destroyed. This explained Tom's reletive unfamiliarity with organoids, Dincotians and the new zoids. He and his family had probably spent the last 5 years in a bomb shelter or something, not knowing that the war had ended yet. This happened to a lot of people.Imagine the shock they had when they found out that there were now not just two, but three races now claiming a part the planet.

"I suppose it is getting to be a big city now. I remember when just one small battle would get the whole town upset. When everyone would know who was involved, who won and lost. It's starting to look like home.", he thought as he rode the Daleron back to the motor-pool.

Major Harrison stared out the window of the huge concrete building at the city that spread out before him. There was a mechanical sounding motion behind him, steel claws on tile.

"Back during the wars, I never could imagine this planet could sustain major population centers beyond New Helic City and Guygalos. There was just too much isolation between colonies. Bandits would exploit the people. You've seen the kind-of Aggro these guys have, that's evidence enough to tell you just how much evil there is waiting out there." he sighed.

Commander Blinn didn't speak, but just silently glanced out the window.

So Harrison continued,

"I remember when I used to hear about places like this when I was a kid. Campfire stories."

"I couldn't possibly relate." said Blinn, "Where I grew up, there was barely even mention of this planet"

Harrison looked at Blinn wryly.

"Tell me Blinn, how exactly does something like you grow up?"

"What? You think we come pre-fabricated or something?"

Harrison paused for a moment and said, "Well, yeah. I did."

Major Harrison gleaned from his silence and ponderous staring that something was bothering Blinn.

"What's on your mind?", he asked

"Speaking of Aggro, there is this pilot. Raven. I think the System wants me to do something about him.", replied Blinn.

"Oh, Raven huh? I've heard of him. He's been around since before Prozen's War. I thought he would have gotten himself killed already."

"Apparently not. I got a patch message earlier today. He's somewhere on this continent. I don't know if he's with the bandits or the United Factions."

Harrison smiled and chuckled, "No, I don't think he's with anyone. Raven never has, and never will fight on any particular side." He straightened his face and his tone became more serious, "Is Zoid Eve asking you to kill him?"

Blinn paused for a moment and then said, "Because of the number of zoids and human lives he has destroyed, I have decided that I'm going to personally take it upon myself to see that this evil be destroyed."

"I can't stand in the way of that, Commander. Good luck.", said Harrison.

**Episode 2:**

**Aggro**

Raven was a very strange individual. In the last 20 years, he had shot himself up on nanovectors,like most people have, to extend their lives. But of all people, Raven was probably one of the last people who should have had access to that medicine. He wanted to ensure that he would remain a force of random violence and agitation for decades. Perhaps centuries.

He came across a road sign for a hotel in the next town. He had been following the Interstate deep within State territory. Aside from his usual purpose of seeking out opponentsand slaughtering them, or just killing anything he can find in general, he had a defined goal: To bring his terror to Zye City, the capital of the Mokian State. But his zoid was hardly in condition to reak the amount of havoc that he had in mind.

No, he would have to find something better and far more destructive than the old Imperial Army surplus-sale Geno-Mini that was basically a watered-down version of the Geno-Saurer he once owned (and destroyed) but without the particle cannon or extra features.

He shot down the sign, and continued off toward the city. The booster on the Geno-Mini was very fast, but before reaching the outskirts of Dorigan and Zye City, Shadow, Raven's loyal organoid brought the zoid to a screeching halt just 20 miles outside of town.

"Shadow, what's going on? I said move. We're going to the city.", commanded Raven.

He looked on the radar and saw that there was a single MG running below. From it's markings, it appeared to be civilian as well.

"Well, I'm a little hungry for some meat too, Shadow. Let's stop for some lunch.", he said.

Blinn had loaded up the Daleron with everything he could. The more information and recorded data he requested from the System on Raven, the more prepared he wanted to be. Through the System, he was able to directly access an archive of information culminated from thousands of zoids' interactions with him. As he watched some of the dumped video memory of zoids' last few seconds before their cores were destroyed, he became all that more angry. His blatant disregard for life (of any kind) should have prevented him from getting as far as he has. Somehow, he's managed to become an amazingly skilled pilot. Somehow. What got Blinn perplexed was why Shadow was so loyal to such a monster. There was no record explaining this anywhere in the archives.

He loaded up another cartridge of ammunition into the Daleron. Then a prompt window came up on the cluttered desktop screen of his mind reporting the location that Raven had been sighted just now.

That was his cue to leave.

"That was pathetically easy, Shadow. If I didn't hate them so much, I wouldn't even waste my time with these things.", said Raven with a smirk as he smashed the geodesic nanite core of the MG. The mauled and partially deconstructed heap of zoid parts roared and twitched as it died under the foot of Raven's Geno-Mini.

"It wasn't even armed with anything better than a few missiles. There doesn't seem to be a pilot to smite here. It must have been an automated sleeper of some kind. Too bad. I was hoping to see two kinds of flesh and blood with this kill.", he said with his ever-condescending tone.

Then something appeared on his radar. It was the Daleron, and to Raven, just another opponent.

"Well, it looks like we're going to have seconds, Shadow.", he said.

Shadow silently confirmed this, but nervously so. Perhaps he had an awkward feeling about this next fight.

"A red Geno-Mini. He's downgraded since the last entry, though I expect that he is still as brutal and deadly as before.", said Blinn.

The only thing stopping him from launching the long-range missiles was knowing that he might not get a chance to stare down this evil force in the face before destroying it. As he got closer, he saw the freshly killed carcass of the MG. "There's the source of that bulletin, I see he has dispatched it in quite a painful way. Typical of him.", he said.

The Daleron landed and Raven, with his smirking grin and usual dismissive demeanor began the dialogue:

"Do you want to die today too? My Mini already ate today, but I'm sure it could find the appetite to deal with you too.", he said condescendingly as ever.

"This isn't a game, Raven.", said Blinn coldly.

"Aren't you the tough guy. Well, let's see what my Mini has to say about that." he said, "Shadow! Deal with him!"

Blinn had already launched the stealth missiles, they hit the Mini with a surprise.

"An attack from the air? No, those were stealth missiles. This guy really isn't playing games. We can deal with him, can't we Shadow.", he said.

Raven started the barrage of nuclear payload missiles that made up his doomsday weapon. It wasn't a charged-particle beam, but it would cause massive damage and if the damage didn't do them in, the radiation probably would.

"Nuclear missiles?" Blinn thought, "There better not be anyone around here! Those things will wipe out all organic life forms anywhere near this battlefield! How careless!"

Blinn scanned the area, to check for any humans around. His first priority was now to ensure that no bystanders were to get harmed by Raven's careless disregard for life. It's a good thing he checked too, because there was Tom, this time with a hover-board instead of a car sitting there on a beach blanket, applying sunscreen.

"He probably came out to watch the battle again, that moron.", he said under his breath as he lurched the Daleron toward Tom. Tom froze and nearly ran when over the loudspeaker, Blinn yelled, "Do not run, There's radiation. Get in now!"

As soon as the Daleron fell around him, he climbed up into the nearest access hatch and shut it behind him. He climbed up to the top and entered the cockpit through the access panel in the back.

"Hi, Blinn. What's going on?", he asked.

"You idiot! Raven just launched missiles with nuclear payload at me. Had I not gotten between you and those missiles and told you to get in, you would have probably melted from the radiation.

"Nuclear missiles? Oh my god, we're all going to die!", exclaimed Tom.

"The radiation won't harm you in here. This thing is air-tight and has a gamma shield. Just sit and relax. I'm in a battle right now.", said Blinn.

Raven stepped forward. Blinn hadn't lost track of the missiles, to prevent them from going anywhere else and potentially spreading radiation, The Daleron had to take each one as a direct hit. That way the radiation could be neutralized and not spread. This caused substantial damage to the ballistic shielding. Raven knew this would happen.

"You're weak, you could have avoided those missiles easily and actually would have a shot at destroying me." said Raven with a smirk, "Your concern for others is your downfall!".

Raven then hit the Daleron with a barrage of EM flash missiles. But unlike last time when that remote-denotation EM bomb took him out. Blinn saw this ahead of time and already had the EM shield online going into battle. Blinn had a whole cadre of conventional weapons at his disposal, but Raven was by no means, a conventional target. If he were to hit Raven too hard, it might set the nuclear payload off, and that would destroy them both. But if he didn't destroy Raven now, Raven would use the rest of the payload to destroy him and endanger the lives of countless civilians with the radiation.

"Goddamn it!" said Blinn, "I don't know what to do"

"Wouldn't they have put a manual control for the particle cannon on here?", asked Tom.

Blinn had almost forgot about the particle cannon, since it was entirely manual and not even visible to the core from which Blinn was operating. There was no way he could access the particle cannon directly. He would have to actually aim and fire using the same manual interface that humans would use.

"He shouldn't have even gotten this far. No human can fire that fast, he must have an organoid. Also, I didn't expect him to use something as dangerous as nuclear payload missiles. That's it. I'm going to do what I came here to do.", thought Blinn out-loud.

"Had enough? Like it matters. I'm going to have fun killing you anyway. You and your zoid, whatever it is.", said Raven

"When I tell you to, You need to press that blinking red button", Blinn commanded Tom.

"Okay, you're using the cannon?", asked Tom.

"Yes, I'm going to try to freeze him up a bit.", said Blinn.

With that, Blinn's seat lowered in the cockpit and moved forward. Blinn was now able to access the jamming system.

"So there's just Raven and his organoid, Shadow in there. If I can jam up the zoid core on his Mini, it will take longer to execute commands from both the control interface as well as Shadow. I'll stick a little bug in there just in case we missfire the cannon.", he said. He then switched his view over to the targeting computer, they had locked on to the Mini's fuel cell.

"Fire now. Now! NOW!", yelled Blinn.

Tom pressed the button and the cannon fired.

"Wow, I had always imagine the beam to be bigger.", said Tom.

Raven managed to dodge the attack.

"You can't even use a particle cannon right. You're supposed to do something to hold me in place first, you fool.", said Raven

"Well, that didn't slow him down much at all. Shadow must have reconciled the jamming I did. Which means..." Blinn said, anticipating something

Raven was about to fire another barrage of nuclear payload missiles, when the canopy of the mini suddenly opened and his seat launched him out of the cockpit. Shadow soon found himself ejected from the core, with his energy depleted from the bug.

"Yes!", Tom yelled as Blinn cam back up from the Jamming system to the control deck.

"What the? What the hell happened? Shadow! What's going on here!", yelled Raven. Who was now just standing outside his zoid, bewildered by what just happened.

Raven then turned to the Daleron and yelled, "That's a cheap trick! There's no honor in fighting me unarmed!"

This was what Blinn had been waiting for. Now he could have his gloriously obligatory monologue before serving up an icy cold bowl of justice ala mode, Orangoid-style.

"Exactly, there is no honor in fighting the unarmed. Nor is there honor in compromising the safety of civilians in combat!" Blinn began yelling through the loudspeaker, "Nor is there honor in battling for no other purpose other than killing. Nor is there honor in using weapons that will not just destroy your enemies, but also destroy innocent bystanders." Blinn was now practically screaming through the loudspeaker, "Nor is there honor in carelessly killing your zoid because you force it to override the combat system freeze and fight against it's will! Nor is there any honor at all in expressing flagrant disregard for life in and off of the battlefield, such as you have done."

Blinn was not particularly good at condensing his obligatory monologues into a few somewhat meaningful-sounding words. No, he's pretty much about as articulate as fine-print legalese, and as equally poetic.

But the speech had a more profound impact on Tom than Raven. Tom couldn't have imagined a cold, rational and mechanical organism, such as Blinn to be capable of such an emotional outburst. It clearly wasn't the System or the Eve that told him to go after Raven. It was his own growing rage.

Raven shrugged this off as another military zoid pilot giving him yet another speech about honor and morality.

"Do you think any of that matters to me? Living things will kill each other anyways. That's how things work. And you talk about these zoids as if they actually matter. They are just weapons, tools, things. They're goddamn machines! They are programmed to act like living things, but all they are is just cold metal and electronics and stuff. So go ahead, I dare you to kill me. Given that you just lectured me on morality and honor, I'm sure you're not the type who is going to harm another human being.", he said throwing out his arms. As if to tease.

"Tom" said Blinn, "I need you to hide behind the seat."

"Why is that.", asked Tom.

Blinn sighed but maintained his solemn, monotone, commanding voice, "Because I don't want him to get the wrong idea that I'm your organoid, and that you were piloting this thing when I open the canopy in a few seconds. That would ruin everything"

Tom acknowledged this and ducked behind Blinn's seat. The canopy opened and Blinn stood up.

"What makes you think that I was fighting you for any other purpose than to do just that.", yelled Blinn

"Is this some kind of joke? Talking through your organoid. Another cheap trick.", Raven yelled back.

"I am the pilot of this zoid.", said Blinn

"Are you kidding me? I can see you right now, peeking out from behind your organoid.", yelled Raven as he pointed at Tom peering over the edge of the seat.

Blinn clenched his teeth and raised a single toe-claw with frustration. He quietly whispered to Tom, "What the hell are you doing? I told you not let yourself be seen!"

"I wanted to see what he looked like.", said Tom.

"That's a lame excuse.", retorted Blinn.

Raven, feeling more confident with this now, yelled out,

"You're one to lecture me about honor, you're such a coward that you won't even show yourself to me unarmed."

Something then happened. Blinn froze and it was as though a switch went off inside that head of his, because he just suddenly stiffened up and jumped right out of the cockpit.

Tom scampered up to the edge to see what was going on.

Blinn darted straight toward Raven with a mouth full of teeth wide open. He spun around and smacked him with his tail, Raven hardly has any time to get back up before Blinn had already kicked him into the air.

Raven tried landing some punches with his fists, but they did not stop Blinn's raging attack. Just the dull sounds of knuckles on metal. Blinn had Raven pinned to the ground. He was leaned over, with his claws ready to tear him apart. He roared in his face a few times before screaming at him in some other, off-world language. Blinn would have made the killing blow, had Tom not yelled for him to stop.

"Please stop! Enough Blinn. You've done enough. You don't have to kill him.", he yelled.

Tom had climbed down from the cockpit and was still standing a good distance from them.

"Yes I do. You stay out of this, boy.", Blinn's voice had changed. There was less articulation, a heavy flange and a thick dinosaurian accent.

"Blinn, put Raven down right now!", Tom commanded.

"I do not take commands like that! I am not a mindless weapon.", Blinn yelled at Tom. Showing teeth with a hiss.

Tom was clearly intimidated by this and backed away some.

"You should spare him for that very reason! I didn't think you were serious! I didn't know you were actually going to kill him.", said Tom.

Blinn threw Raven down on the ground and said, "Why are you interfering with this!"

"If you do it, there will be all that much less that separates you from people like him" yelled Tom, "Please don't kill him"

Blinn paused for a moment, turned toward Raven , who was scrambling toward Shadow as quietly as he could, then let out one final roar and then leapt back up into the cockpit of the Daleron. Tom scrambled up and barely managed to get inside before the canopy closed.

There was an awkward silence. Blinn hadn't started up any of the systems of the Daleron. He just sat there, staring at Raven as he walked his zoid away from the city.

The cockpit was silent, and the sun beating in through the canopy was starting to make it very hot.

"You did the right thing by not killing him, Blinn", said Tom.

Blinn did not answer for a while. He eventually said, "No, I didn't. You have no idea what kind of evil that individual is capable of. If I ever have the opportunity to do it again, I will not hesitate".


End file.
